


Among the Faithless, Faithful Only He

by Helholden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dragons, Dreams, Gen, Jon Snow Centric, Post - A Dance With Dragons, Prophecy, R plus L equals J, Spoilers for Book 5 - A Dance with Dragons, War, White Walkers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 23:30:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3914707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helholden/pseuds/Helholden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If the Wall did not stand the night, then all of the Seven Kingdoms would fall with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Among the Faithless, Faithful Only He

* * *

 

 _Among the faithless, faithful only he;_  
_Among innumerable false, unmoved,_  
_Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,_  
_His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal;_  
_Nor number, nor example with him wrought_  
_To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind,_  
_Though single. From amidst them forth he passed,_  
_Long way through hostile scorn, which he sustained_  
_Superior, nor of violence feared aught;_  
_And with retorted scorn his back he turned_  
_On those proud towers to swift destruction doomed._

 

—John Milton, “Paradise Lost”

 

 

* * *

 

 

In the black of night, there was nothing to witness but the faint torchlight in the distance.

 

Jon didn’t want to go to it. He never wanted to go to it. He had to find his father, though, or was it Robb? Then again, he thought of Arya. It might have been her whom he sought out. The prompting of her name in his head caused Jon to bite down on his tongue until he tasted blood filling his mouth. He wiped his lips on the back of his hand, but his hand came away dry.

 

Something was wrong. He could feel it. Something was wrong, and he had to tell them. He had to warn them all before it was too late, and so he began to walk. He walked until he ran, and then he hollered out their names into the black as if they might hear him if he was only louder.

 

He pushed open doors, screaming now as he tried to find somebody, his hoarse voice echoing back to him. Jon ran further, but the long empty hall was never-ending and there were no answers.

 

There was only the silence, save for his own voice echoing all around.

 

The rookeries were empty. There were no more ravens. There were no horses in the stables either, just heaps of bones in their place.

 

He had run through the entirety of Winterfell, finding nothing.

 

And then, he stood before the crypts of Winterfell. His fists clenched hard at his sides. As he breathed out, he could see his hot breath turning to frost in the air. He wasn’t cold, but the dark entrance of the crypt began to crack and creak as ice grew over everything in sight slowly but surely.

 

He didn’t want to go down there, but something told him he had to.

 

His feet disobeyed his hesitation, and he found himself walking down the spiral steps to the crypt below.

 

There was no torchlight here, though there should have been. Jon took one step forward, and then another, and another. He expected to feel an invisible force pushing him back. He wasn’t welcome here. He wasn’t one of them, but nothing stopped him. There was only the pull. A pull he could not deny, and so he took another step, and another.

 

“I’m not a Stark!” Jon called out to the darkness. It swallowed whole his words, echoing nothing back to him this time.

 

He took another step, and another, until he was bolder and walking faster.

 

“This isn’t my place!” he hollered next, but the blackness ignored him yet again and ate his words. The pull grew stronger; his steps grew faster, until it got so black, so dark, he wanted to scream.

 

“ _I don’t belong here_ —”

 

“Shh, shhh,” a woman’s voice said to him, a wet cloth grazing over his forehead. “Calm yourself. You’re not lost to us yet, Jon Snow.” He felt the cloth come away and heard it splash lightly in a basin of water.

 

Slowly, Jon opened his eyes.

 

They were tired and bleary, itchy, too. His mouth felt full of cloth, dry and swollen. He tried to speak again, but he found it harder this time to say anything. The woman propped his head up, offering a cup to his lips. Jon drank of it, spilling it over his lips and chin. The water was refreshing, though, and cool—but Jon nearly choked on it, coughing and sputtering against the cup.

 

She pulled it away. “There, there now,” she cooed. “You drank too fast. You’ve been out for days. You must take it slow.”

 

Carefully, she lowered his head back down. Jon tried to open his eyes again, but everything was blurry and the room was dark, lit by a fire across from the foot of his bed. It burned bright, but no light entered through the windows, if there were any. It was nightfall, or at least close to dawn.

 

Somewhere on the corner of his vision, Jon caught sight of a few candles burning as well. He rolled his head to the side to get a good view of the woman tending to him. She had risen from the chair beside his bed, her back to him. Jon watched as she walked over to the fire, picking up an iron poker to stoke the logs within the flame.

 

She was swathed in red from head to toe. Every inch of cloth, it was red. Even her long flowing hair was red, burning as bright as the pulsing ruby stone at her throat.

 

 _The red woman_ , realized Jon.

 

She put it aside, the iron poker, and made her way back to his bedside. Jon’s eyes followed her as she stopped beside the end table to his left, and he lifted his head just slightly to watch her. There were bottles on it. He saw some bandage wraps as well, and a manner of metal instruments. She began to look through the bottles, seemingly ignoring him.

 

“Did I die?” Jon asked at last, his voice weak and raw. He watched her purse her lips at one bottle in particular before placing it back down on the table. “Did you bring me back to life?”

 

“You are not dead yet, Jon Snow,” Melisandre answered him, picking up another bottle. “Your wounds were grievous, yes, but I staunched the blood flow and stitched the worst of them. They are covered in a poultice as well to prevent infection.” She placed the bottle down. “You will survive. Miraculously.”

 

“It is no miracle,” he said, weary as he rested his head back down to the pillow. Jon closed his eyes. “The men. Bowen. Wick. The ones who did this. Where are they?”

 

“If you want to know that they were punished, the answer is no. There is no one to punish them. No one wishes to vote for a new lord commander when the last one was nearly stabbed to death.” Lady Melisandre sat down in her chair beside him again. “Here,” she said. “Drink this.” She held a small cap full to his lips.

 

“Will it put me to sleep?” he asked, turning away from it. “I don’t want to sleep.”

 

“No, but it will stop some of your pain,” Melisandre answered him. “You should stay awake if you can. The cold is brewing, Jon Snow. Even I can feel it now.”

 

At her insistence, Jon drank the potion. It was a bitter liquid, and he coughed after he swallowed it down. “Why must medicine taste like piss,” he complained.

 

“All good things taste horrible,” she explained, putting away the cap, “and all horrible things taste good.”

 

“Philosophy,” Jon scoffed. “This is what I wake up to.”

 

“Would you rather wake up to a knife, Lord Snow?”

 

Jon swallowed, closing his eyes tightly. He took a deep breath, and then opened his eyes again and turned to look at her.

 

Lady Melisandre’s ruby had a life of its own, pulsing with light akin to the beat of a heart. Her throat was pale and long, and when he looked into her eyes, those eyes seemed red, too. It might have just been the cast of the fire, but Jon had thought he had seen them red before. There was something otherworldly about her, but she was just a woman.

 

She was just a woman as he was just a man, and there was nothing special about her beyond that.

 

“Why did you save me?” Jon finally asked her.

 

The question had been lingering on the tip of his tongue, the edge of his mind, as he lay there. Now that it was asked, it felt like an even heavier weight on his chest. Jon thought it might alleviate the pressure, but it only made it worse. As she sat there, staring at him with a curious expression, it felt as thought she was laying on top of him, her body crushing him below a weight she did not have.

 

And she did it all using just her eyes.

 

“You must rest,” Melisandre announced all of a sudden, her voice oddly light, as she stood up from her chair. “You need time to heal, Lord Snow. It will take more than just a few days of unconsciousness and my needlework to make you feel as good as new.”

 

“You mock me.”

 

Melisandre paused beside the bed, her skirts swishing softly. “I warned you, Jon.”

 

“Yes, you warned me.”

 

“And it has led us here, to this juncture.”

 

“What do you want me to say?” Jon blurted out, using his one good arm to push himself up from the bed. “You warned me. You warned me, and I didn’t listen—” He felt exhausted already, pushing himself up like that. His head swam with dizziness, and his arm gave out beneath him. He fell back to the bed, having exerted himself too much.

 

In his haze Jon felt Melisandre helping him, removing his arm from underneath its awkward position below his body. She helped him lie flat against the bed on his back, pulling the covers up to his chest. She folded them over gently, smoothing out the fabric.

 

“Say nothing,” Melisandre murmured to him from far away, “but listen this time. Get your rest. You will need your strength, Jon Snow. War is coming unlike anything we have ever seen, and it will be at our doorstep very soon. I need you to be strong and ready when it does. Can you do that?”

 

Jon wanted to ask why she needed him. He wanted to ask what good was he against a hundred thousand white walkers. He wanted to ask again why she saved him. She could have let him die. He was no friend of hers. He didn’t believe in her magic. He didn’t believe in her god, but her words came true. Her warning had become as real as the ice in his bones, and Jon did not want to argue over the matter any longer.

 

He wanted to rest, as she had said he should do.

 

He felt her hand on his forehead, wiping away the sweat with her bare hand as if she was his servant or his mother. It was strange but comfortable, and Jon felt himself soothed by it despite its oddness. His head rolled to the side on the pillow, but he nodded slowly to show his agreement.

 

“Yes,” Jon murmured against the fading firelight on the edge of his vision. He saw the pulse of her ruby one last time before he closed his eyes, accepting the darkness all around him.

 

This time, though, he didn’t dream of the darkness again.

 

He dreamt of a blackness taking shape all around him, but the blackness was not just blackness. In the distance he could see the fire, opalescent flames licking against the nothingness as if there were walls long, tall, and wide curving outward in every direction—

 

—and then the first burst in the center, engulfing him in flames.

 

The flames did not burn. The flames did not hurt. They did not sear his flesh, but instead felt like water, tickling his skin as it poured over his arms, down his back, across his torso, and around his legs. He was covered in it, but he couldn’t see a thing.

 

_Jon?_

 

The voice called to him from somewhere behind, and Jon turned around to face it, only he wasn’t a man anymore. He was beast on all fours, snarling at the unfamiliar cracks and noises that filled the darkness of the wood. The flames were dying, disappearing, but not before Jon saw the pale, cracked bark of the weirwood before him, reaching over him, its branches like fingertips above his head.

 

The weirwood had a face, and its face did not move, but it looked familiar to him. It looked like someone he knew. One of the pack, of his pack . . .

 

 _Don’t be afraid, Jon_ , the voice whispered to him across the wind. _It’s only the dark. There’s nothing to fear here. You can see everything, but you can hide in it, too. You can see them. Have you tried to see them, Jon? Have you tried to open your eyes?_

 

Creeping closer, his eyes caught the splits and fissures in the pale bark. Its base was rooted in solid rock, the trees roots growing out from between the broken stone. Familiar to him. Barely a sapling, but growing right before his eyes, up, up, up into the sky with reaching, stretching twigs like fingers. Fingers on a hand made of wood.

 

Circling around the trunk, he came face to face with it.

 

Red eyes stared back at him, reflecting a wolfish face in their core. Red eyes, but human eyes set into a tree. The mouth was cut, bleeding red sap, but it did not move. The tree had his brother’s face, but there were three eyes, not two. Glad he was at first. Their pack had been torn asunder, separated, slaughtered . . .

 

Sniffing, he smelled wood and sap and boy and blood, and beneath that, the fresh scent of stone and the chill of snow.

 

Beneath that, though, a horrible scent. A terrible scent.

 

 _Death_ , he recognized.

 

He bared his fangs and growled, hair bristling.

 

 _Jon, you must open your eyes_ , his brother’s voice insisted calmly. _You must use your eyes to see. You have to see. Open your eyes, Jon._ One of the branches reached for him, a twig pointing towards his head. _Open your—_

 

It touched him.

 

Jon gasped awake, his eyes flying open.

 

-

 

He shrugged an arm into the clean tunic left at his bedside for him. He had found it upon waking along with a fresh pair of trousers and long-legged underclothes. His right arm was fine, but his left had been cut deep by one of the daggers his sworn brothers had used on him. The area was bandaged with thick cloth binding. _Too tight_ , he thought. Jon’s left arm was nearly numb, but it tingled enough that he could still feel it. It would recover given time.

 

His sworn brothers had turned traitorous in the end. Jon had seen their distrust mounting, but he had never taken the red woman’s warning seriously. He hadn’t put his faith in her visions. Jon had never believed the men would have taken it so far.

 

He had been wrong.

 

As he tried to bend his left arm, the sharp pangs caused him to grimace. Jon gave up, lowering it. The dirty tunic, which he had pulled off easily by bending forward, was lying on the floor at his feet. He glanced down at it. It had smelled like cold, rotting skin, and it had turned up his nose. The fabric was loose and soft, though. The new tunic was closer to his size and smaller; therefore, harder for him to slip into with his arm the way it was.

 

“Satin,” Jon called, bowing his head as he closed his eyes. He had called the name out of habit until he remembered he was in the Lady Melisandre’s room and not his own quarters. “Where is my damn steward . . . ”

 

“Out there with his other sworn brothers,” Melisandre’s voice answered from across the room. Jon raised his head. He hadn’t heard her enter. She was on the opposite side of the room as the door, standing by the bookcase. There must have been another door to her room in the far corner, one he hadn’t seen before, from which she emerged in silence.

 

Melisandre strode across the room, swathed in her red robes that shimmered in the firelight.

 

“It would do you well to keep your voice down, Lord Snow,” she advised as she approached him. “They do not know you are still alive.”

 

“They will find out soon enough.”

 

“But not until you are prepared to face them,” she said. Melisandre placed her hand on his shoulder, guiding Jon to sit, and helped him with his tunic. “I will find your steward for you. It would do you good to have a friend on your side when you leave this tower.”

 

She handed him a bowl of soup from the hearth and left him alone again. Jon ate in silence until Melisandre returned with another upon her heels. He looked up from his bowl, placing it aside on the small table to his left. Melisandre moved aside, and Satin stepped forward into the room.

 

Satin’s mouth fell open, his eyes widening. “My lord . . . ”

 

Jon stood up to greet him. His squire hurried forward as if he meant to clasp him in a hug, but then at the last minute he looked down at Jon’s bloody bandages visible through his white tunic and thought twice as he froze. Satin raised his eyes back to Jon’s face.

 

“My lord, I thought you were dead.”

 

“So did I,” Jon said with a tight smile.

 

Satin looked between them. “What happened, my lord?”

 

Jon tilted his head towards Melisandre. “The Lady Melisandre saved my life with her skills of healing,” he answered. He looked back to his steward. There were things he needed to ask, and he wasted no time in asking them. “Satin, I need to know what has been going on in the Night’s Watch since my attack. The free folk. Are they still here?”

 

“Yes, my lord. Well, some of them. Tormund Giantsbane has left for Hardhome as you requested of him, taking a large score of free folk with him. More than half still remain.”

 

Jon closed his eyes. “Good,” he said. _Tormund has sense, after all_. “Is Val still here?”

 

Satin glanced warily to Melisandre. “Yes, my lord, but some of the men have been trying to get into her tower. She has barded herself inside. More of them than there are of her.”

 

Jon felt his jaw tighten. “Lady Melisandre, can you see to her safety?”

 

Melisandre regarded him in silence with keen eyes. “I will see what I can do,” she answered.

 

“Bring her here, if you must.” Jon turned his attention back to Satin. “I will need you to train with me using the sword. I need to get my strength back, and I need a sword arm that can swing. I know the crossbow is your weapon, but if you can beat me with a sword, I’ll know my limits.”

 

“Yes, my lord.” Satin bowed his head.

 

“Come back tomorrow after midday,” Jon instructed him. “We’ll begin then.”

 

Satin bowed his head again before he left Melisandre’s tower. Melisandre closed the door behind him. “It is not wise to exert yourself too soon,” she advised.

 

“We don’t have time,” Jon told her. _Winter is coming_. “Winter is coming, and we’re not even prepared.”

 

“Winter is already here, Lord Snow,” Melisandre’s voice echoed as she crossed the room to stand in front of the fireplace. Jon looked at her back silhouetted by the flames. There was no wind in the room, but her hair seemed to move as if caught in a soft breeze.

 

“Which is why we don’t have time,” Jon said.

 

She didn’t argue further.

 

Half past midday on the next day, Satin showed up as promised with a sword in hand. Jon could not leave the tower room without being spotted, so they had to train within. They were careful to move everything out of their way before they began. Jon unsheathed Longclaw. It glimmered with the light of the fire upon the blade, and he swung hard. His sword clashed against Satin’s blade with a song of steel, and they fought.

 

Satin was not much skilled with a blade, but he knew the basics. He may have been as pretty as girl, but he took to the art of warfare easily. Jon came at him, but Satin parried to the left. To Jon’s bad side. Jon twisted around to try and catch Satin off guard from the rear, and nearly succeeded. His squire stumbled back just in time, taking a defensive stance against him.

 

They danced across Melisandre’s tower like boys at swords until Jon used all of his strength to attempt a disarm. His squire evaded, and Jon lost his footing as Satin tripped him. Jon hit the ground, wincing. Pain shot up backside. It throbbed through his arm.

 

Jon dropped his sword, holding up his one good arm. “No more,” he said, and then he grasped at his left forearm.

 

“My lord.” Satin knelt quickly onto one knee beside him. “Did I hurt you?”

 

“I’m all right,” Jon told him through gritted teeth. He let go of his arm to hold up his hand again. “Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

 

“At least let me help you to stand,” Satin insisted in his sweet voice.

 

Jon let his squire help him up, but they didn’t train anymore for that day. They spent the next six days training with swords, and each day Jon felt better, tougher, and his reflexes got quicker. His mind grew sharper, and his right arm regained its balance as his left arm slowly began to heal.

 

On the seventh day, Jon was ready to face his men.

 

They were still his men, and he was still their Lord Commander. They had not voted for a new one, and even if they didn’t know he was still alive, they were about to find out.

 

Jon was able to dress himself without help, but he needed Satin’s assistance with donning chain mail and his leathers. After his assault, Jon wasn’t leaving this tower without chain mail beneath his usual leathers. The chain mail fitted over his tunic, dropped past his waist a few inches, and reached down to his wrists. Beneath his clothes, his wounds were still bandaged. They felt better, though. They itched instead of hurting most of the time, which was a good sign.

 

His leathers fit snug over the chain mail. Satin laced his boots for him, and then the boy placed Jon’s fur cloak over his shoulders. Jon could not fix the leather straps across his chest because his left arm was still lame, but Satin stood before him and took care of that as well. When Jon was dressed, he looked at himself before one of Melisandre’s tall mirrors.

 

His flesh looked pale, but the blood was in his cheeks. Dark circles lined his eyes. He had not been sleeping well. More often than not, he dreamed strange dreams of wolves and weirwoods, of a voice that sounded strangely like his brother, Bran, calling out to him, speaking to him, but they were only dreams. Jon set his jaw like stone.

 

Those were dreams.

 

This was not.

 

Jon left her chambers, the red woman on his right and his squire on his left. His left was his weak side, and Satin was more skilled to protect him in case of another attack. He looked up to the sky. It was day, but the sky was overcast. A blanket of grey stretched from east to west to south, covering everything in a gloomy cast. The air was ice, and he breathed it in. When he breathed it out, Jon saw a white mist leave his lips.

 

The boards creaked beneath his feet as Jon descended the staircase. Heads lifted as he passed by, and every pair of eyes locked on him. Stunned silence filled the icy air as he trudged past each man of the Night’s Watch, his former whore squire and the red woman in tow. Stillness overcame the grounds at Castle Black, and all turned to watch as if it were an interment in procession.

 

The looks on their faces told Jon all that he needed to know. They had thought him dead, lost to them, gone forever, and yet here he was walking by them and his eyes did not glow blue as the eyes of dead men did around here.

 

No one spoke a word until Jon stormed into his old office, flanked left and right with his squire and Lady Melisandre and the men of the Night’s Watch on his heels. They had formed a gathering behind him, following Jon as he crossed the grounds of Castle Black.

 

Bowen Marsh was sitting at Jon’s desk. Acting Lord Commander, no doubt. At the sudden interruption, Bowen raised his head to complain, but the sight of Jon before him caught him off guard. He stared slack-jawed in Jon’s direction, fear overcoming his face, his hand gripping the desk.

 

As their eyes met, Jon’s were icy cold.

 

“Seize him,” Jon commanded.

 

For a few still seconds, no one acted. Then, two sworn brothers behind Jon charged forward and grasped Bowen by the arms, wrenching him from his seat.

 

“You’re dead!” Bowen cried in disbelief. “You’re _dead!_ ”

 

“Not yet,” Jon said, and he nodded his head at the men. “Take him to the courtyard.”

 

The men dragged him to the door as Bowen Marsh continued to holler.

 

“That _witch_! That red witch brought him back to life! Unhand me! He’s a traitor! An _abomination_! He broke our vows! _Unhand me!_ ”

 

Jon followed the men out to the courtyard as everyone gathered around the commotion. The two men shoved Bowen to his knees, and Jon moved to stand before him.

 

“Satin, fetch me a block.”

 

Jon unsheathed Longclaw, and Bowen’s cries grew louder. No one came to his aid. No one came to his rescue. Satin returned with a block, which was placed before Bowen, and the men who held him shoved him onto it. Still, Bowen cried out against it.

 

“You shouldn’t be killing _me_!” Bowen exclaimed. “Kill _him_! Kill the bastard! Kill the witch! Not me, _not me_ . . . ” There were tears streaming down Bowen’s face, but Jon did not care. This was the fate of traitors. Jon raised Longclaw, and brought it down in one swift motion.

 

It was instant silence in the clean, still air. Bowen Marsh’s cries were gone.

 

“Bring me Wick,” Jon called above the crowd as he cast his eyes over their faces. “And every other man who raised a knife against me!”

 

It did not take long for a crowd of boys to seize Wick and bring him to the block as Bowen’s body was kicked aside, his blood pooling in the fresh white snow. Wick cried out as they shoved him down onto the bloody block, and Jon swung Longclaw again until two heads lied side by side before the wooden block instead of one. Two more men were brought before him, and they lost their heads as well. The snow ran pink with their blood.

 

Jon’s arm burned, but he did not let it show. He raised his bloody bastard sword into the sky above his head.

 

“This is the fate of a traitor to the Night’s Watch!” Jon hollered at the crowd. “Any man who raises a blade, dagger, sword, or any weapon at all against another sworn brother _will be beheaded_. This will stand above all other offenses!” He lowered his bloody sword. “I am still your Lord Commander, and you _will_ suffer me. Tormund Giantsbane took a rescue party to Hardhome for Cotter Pyke and his men and the thousands of free folk holed up there. When he returns, we will send the survivors to the villages in the Gift. We are fighting something we don’t understand. Something much stronger than us. Faster than us. Harder to kill than us.”

 

“Not harder than you!” a voice called from amongst the crowd, earning a few laughs. “Meaning no offense, Lord Snow! But seeing as how we’re facing monsters who are hard to kill, maybe we ought to have a Lord Commander who’s just as hard to kill as them.”

 

A cheer rose amongst some of the men in agreement, which brought a tight smile to Jon’s face.

 

He turned to look across the whole crowd, coming full circle as his cloak dragged against the snow around his feet.

 

“We must stand together,” Jon told them. “We can’t afford to fight each other! You may not like it, and you may not be used to it. We’re men of the Night’s Watch! We are used to fighting the free folk, or wildlings as many of you call them. But we are on the same side now! We have a bigger enemy to face. Sworn brothers and free folk must now stand together! United against a common foe! We are on the same side, the side of the living, and _I intend to stay that way!_ ”

 

Jon’s cry earned eager cheers from all around him. Some were more hesitant, and others did not cheer at all, but it was a beginning.

 

They had to learn this was about survival, not petty grudges. They had to give up those old grudges and beaten routines. They had spent their lives ranging against wildlings, and it was ingrained in them that the free folk were their enemies, but they could share this land. They couldn’t be enemies any longer. Jon saw everything more clearly now. He was going to make himself plain to them this time.

 

The rules of the Night’s Watch were going to change, and he was going to see to it.

 

Jon ordered for various preparations as the crowd was listening to him. He had to put them back to work. They had so little time, and Bowen and his men had taken precious time away from them. After he was done, Jon made his way back to his old chambers. He closed the door behind himself and looked up.

 

He was in the Lady Melisandre’s chambers.

 

“Back already, Lord Snow,” her amused voice spoke behind him, and Jon moved out of her way as she walked into the room.

 

“Habit,” he said, casting his gaze over the room. “I think I walked here out of habit.”

 

“Well, you haven’t been back and forth,” Melisandre said from the fireplace as she gazed over at him, dropping something into the flames. It sparked up, igniting a rainbow of white glimmers that caught the other colors in the room. A sweet smell came from it, wafting over to him. “Perhaps, though, your mind was thinking of home and got confused as to which was which.”

 

He had been in her tower for some time now. It struck Jon then that her tower room only held one bed, and he had been in it all of this time. _Where did she sleep while I was trussed up in her bed like a cloth doll?_

 

“Do you not sleep, Lady Melisandre?” Jon thought he recalled a comment of hers once about how she did not sleep. He thought she had been joking, but now he was not so sure.

 

“I do not get weary as others do,” she answered him.

 

Jon wrinkled his brow. “How do you not sleep? All men need sleep,” he said. “And all women,” Jon added for good measure.

 

“The Lord of Light has given me a mission, Jon Snow.” Melisandre crossed the room to her bookcase, laying her hand across a large tome.

 

“A mission to not sleep?”

 

Melisandre cut a sharp look at him over her shoulder. “You have sharp wits, Lord Snow.” She pulled the tome down from the shelf. Its binding was made of frayed old leather. It looked ancient, and its condition was not the best Jon had seen for a book. She opened the tome, her eyes aimed downward at its pages. “But you lack some sense. You ought to rest. Your wounds are not yet healed, and if you try to be the warrior too soon, you will pay for it.”

 

There was a time when Jon would have scoffed at Lady Melisandre, and he had, many times, but that time was quickly passing. He had developed a grudging respect for the red priestess while she had cared for him throughout injuries that might have otherwise killed him. It was not something that she needed to do.

 

It was something she had chosen to do.

 

Softly, Jon bowed his head towards her. “As you say, my lady.”

 

He took his leave from her then and sought out his previous quarters to do what the Lady Melisandre had instructed him to do. _Rest_ , Jon thought grimly.

 

Before he split open the very stitches she had worked so hard to sew into him.

 

-

 

When he had told the men they had limited time, he did not know it would be mere weeks.

 

Jon shared what little information he knew of the Others with Lady Melisandre, and with his knowledge and her skills and the help of the only blacksmith they had, she had fashioned for him a set of armor unlike anything he had ever laid eyes on before. A base of silver metal was set with black plates of Dragon’s Glass, rivulets of steel glimmering in between to show the separation of each piece. Jon knocked his sword against it to test it, causing no damage, and glanced at Lady Melisandre. There was a small knowing smile on her face.

 

“It has been treated,” she informed him. “It will withstand in battle. You will need it, Lord Snow.”

 

Jon looked away, nodding his head. “My sword . . . ”

 

“I can treat it as well,” Lady Melisandre said, standing up. “You said they are susceptible to fire. The Lord of Light will guide you in this matter—”

 

Jon held the tip of his sword out at her as he eyed her.

 

“No tricks,” he warned firmly.

 

Lady Melisandre cocked her head, regarding him interestingly. “No tricks,” she said, “but I can make it where your blade has the heat of fire without the flame. It should be just as effective against them.”

 

Jon considered it. Finally, he turned his bastard sword around, giving her the hilt. “I’ll allow it.”

 

She took the sword. “Put on your armor, Lord Snow. You may very well be on the Wall come the morning.” She walked past him after that, and Jon glanced down at the armor laid out across the table.

 

With Satin’s help, Jon was dressed in his new armor and draped his cloak over it. He exited the tower and walked amongst his men, eyes following him everywhere he went. Some of them bowed, some did not. They all stared, though. The obsidian of his armor glistened in the faint light while the steel shone bright.

 

He saw to the preparations for battle. A scout had warned of something approaching in the distance. As of yet, they were not sure what.

 

As he discussed plans with one of his men, Lady Melisandre returned with his sword, Longclaw. It looked the same, but as Jon took it from her grasp, he felt the heat emanating off of it and through the thick leather of his gloves. He glanced up at her, and the red priestess offered a small smile.

 

“It is done,” she told him.

 

Jon answered with a nod of his head, and she bowed hers as well.

 

In that fateful moment the horn blew three times in a row, filling the sky with an awful howl, and all men slowly looked up at the Wall, Jon included, as the sound rung deeply in their ears. It left a haunting echo in the silence that followed it. Jon looked at Lady Melisandre. Her eyes had never left him. There was no fear in them, though. She was as calm as still water.

 

“They are here,” she said.

 

Jon turned to Satin. “It’s time for war,” he told his steward. He looked outward. “Men! To your posts! _Prepare for battle!_ ”

 

The calm became a rush of bodies to and fro as the Night’s Watch gathered their weapons and saw to their posts. Jon ordered the men to their positions as he went for the winch elevator to ascend the Wall with a group of able-bodied archers. He called for all men who could operate the catapults to follow him. As they ascended to the top of the Wall, Jon glanced up at the sky. It was darkening all around them as if a great cloud was descending upon them from the north. The stretch of cloud was deep grey and seemed unmoving, but the light was quickly fading as it ate up the pale blue sky.

 

The wind picked up. _A storm_ , Jon thought, gritting his teeth. They would have little luck with the burning oil if the wind was too strong, and they might risk injuring or killing their own men if the storm grew too strong. Jon could hear the red priestess’s voice in his head. _The Great Other brings this storm to assist his army_. Jon didn’t put much stock into the idea, but he shifted uncomfortably all the same. Their numbers were too few, and they needed all the help they could get. Clear weather was one of them.

 

 _We won’t get that tonight_ , Jon thought grimly.

 

The elevator came to a rickety halt, and they poured out from the winch. Each man hurried across the top of the Wall along the parapets of ice, and Jon approached the edge, glancing over it to the clearing below. They had chopped down all of the trees closest to the Wall to remove shelter for any oncoming enemy invasions. In the distance there were no torch lights, but Jon could see a mass of darkness that seemed to move in their direction.

 

The storm came with them.

 

“Prepare the catapults!” Jon hollered out. “Oil and set fire upon my command! We will burn them down! Archers! When they are close enough, set fire to your arrows!” He looked to his left, raising his voice even more over the turbulence of the wind. “Is the boiling oil ready?”

 

“ _Yes, m’lord!_ ”

 

Jon looked back at the darkness in the distance. “May the gods help us,” he whispered to himself, swallowing past a lump in his throat. As much as he did not want to be afraid, he was. Not for himself, but for the people south of the Wall. For the women and children, for the cities of innocents who no longer believed in White Walkers or the Others, who thought them old wives’ tales and nothing more.

 

If the Wall did not stand the night, then all of the Seven Kingdoms would fall with it.

 

The swarm of blackness emerged from the trees, the sky swallowed up in a grey storm above their heads. The winds grew stronger, whipping Jon’s cloak in the tumult. He tore at the clasp, letting it fall. He felt the heat of his sword warm his hands and arms, and it seemed to blanket him in a rush of heat. He did not need his cloak. The men looked at him as if he were insane to abandon his furs up here where the ice was coldest and the air was thinner, but Jon gripped the hilt of his bastard sword and felt the power reach into his arm, giving him strength.

 

“ _Catapults!_ ” he hollered, and he heard the men rushing to obey.

 

Just then, a thundering _boom_ shook the very ice they stood on. Men slipped and lost their footing, one of them going over the edge of the Wall and screaming as he fell to his death. Jon looked around himself hurriedly, his eyes falling on Satin beside him.

 

“What magic is this,” Satin said, mostly to himself, and Jon looked outward again as another _boom_ struck the Wall. He stumbled, jabbing his sword into the ice to steady his footing. No one fell this time, but Jon knew their time was limited. As he pulled his sword from the ice, he did not notice where it had melted around his blade.

 

Jon held Longclaw in the air. “Catapults! _Fire!_ ” he shouted at his men.

 

The men set them on fire. They lit up in the darkness, the wind whipping the flames and fanning them, and then they launched over the side of the Wall into the oncoming swarm of bodies below. As the fire lit up the blackness, Jon could see the bodies of the army below.

 

 _White Walkers_ , he thought, drawing in a deep breath.

 

The catapults were successful, setting fire to the first wave. Jon raised his arm again. “ _Fire!_ ” he instructed a second time.

 

They unleashed fire onto their enemies until a high-pitched wailing rang up from the swarm below.

 

“Archers!” Jon called out. “Prepare! _They are drawing closer!_ ”

 

No matter what, the Wall had to hold.

 

They used their resources until the supplies seemed to be running lower, and the swarm was still on them. They had reached the Wall by now, and being dead men already, they had no fear of heights.

 

They began to climb the ice.

 

“ _Release the scythe!_ ”

 

In just moments a large anchor swung across the Wall, scraping the ice and crushing all crawlers in its vicinity. Chunks of ice fell with it, landing on the crowds below and obliterating them. The men hollered in victory, but the battle hadn’t been won yet. Jon would not celebrate just yet.

 

A horn sounded in the distance. _Not ours_ , Jon thought, staring out at the expanse before him.

 

“My lord!” hollered one of his men, pointing over the edge.

 

Jon looked down.

 

They were still climbing the Wall.

 

Jon backed up. “ _Pour the oil!_ ” he demanded as the men scrambled to answer his orders. The oil took care of some of them, but it could not defeat an entire swarm. The walkers were relentless, focused on one task, and they would see themselves to the top.

 

It did not take long before Jon had to unsheathe his sword and swing into them.

 

He beheaded the first walker that appeared over the edge of the parapet, but they came pouring over the Wall like ants against him and his men. Jon was the best swordsman of them all. He tore through their ranks, the heat of his blade slicing through their cold bodies with ease. They did not bleed; they had no blood, it seemed, nothing but rotten blackness in their veins. Archers still fired into them, setting some of them on fire, and sent them running over the Wall.

 

Jon screamed out as Longclaw beheaded another walker, another nameless enemy falling at his feet. His arm was tired, but he kept fighting on as the wind bit at his skin and blew into his eyes, half-blinding him, but then his blade seemed to glow with more and more blood split in its name. It took on a fiery quality like a freshly forged sword in the coals, glowing orange in the center and red on the edges, cauterizing the wounds it made. Jon swung harder, screaming louder, as a bloodlust seemed to overcome him.

 

A screeching sound filled the sky above, causing everything around them to fall still as all eyes glanced upward. Jon was speechless as a black cloud swooped over his head, wings outstretched, brewing its own storm as another burgeoning screech emitted from the large beast.

 

It swooped around in a circle, opening its mouth. A torrent of fire and flame engulfed the walkers surrounding them.

 

When Jon realized his men were mostly unharmed by the beast’s flame, he swung his sword into another nameless, soulless enemy, gutting it, and proceeded to the next. He cleared a path through fallen bodies, adding more to the piles as the beast swooped down from the top of the Wall into the clearing north of it, a torrent of fire pouring from its mouth and burning the army below.

 

Two more separate screeches filled the sky above, and the first beast was joined by two more. White and green, they seemed, and smaller than the first, but their fire was just as deadly. Their companion, the largest, was as black as night and appeared to be an enormous, formless shadow.

 

“Dragons!” one of the men cried. “ _Dragons!_ ”

 

Jon helped his men dispatch the last of the walkers on the Wall until they were standing amidst a ground of torn limbs and burned remains. Most of them were walkers, but a few of them were his own men. Jon went to clean the edge of his blade until he noticed it was still glowing, emanating heat more powerfully than before. He stared at it, afraid to touch it.

 

“M’lord,” one of his men said shakily, “your sword . . . ”

 

Jon lowered his blade. “I can see that,” he snapped, turning from his men and looking over the Wall. He gripped the hilt tightly in his hand, watching as the dragons decimated the army below with fire. The entire field was alight with flame, a fearsome and frightening sight—but also, in its own way, beautiful.

 

“This is only the first,” Satin said beside him, startling Jon. “More will come.”

 

“I know,” Jon said.

 

As the two smaller dragons continued to circle below, screeching and spitting flame, the largest of the beasts rose into the sky once more. It flew towards the Wall and drew close to the edge, almost as if it meant to perch there, but it was too big. Its wings beat into the night, and Jon realized the largest of them had a rider.

 

It was a woman. She was dressed in white from head to toe, and her hair was the silver-blonde of the Targaryens of old. She raised her chin at him. _She’s beautiful_ , Jon thought. _Beautiful and deadly_.

 

She glanced down at his sword, her expression stern. “Are you the one they call Lord Commander Jon Snow?” she asked, her voice booming over the wind, which had seemed to begin dying down despite the heavy clouds that surrounded them still.

 

Jon raised his chin as well. “Yes,” he said carefully, “I am the one they call that.”

 

Slowly, she began to smile.

 

 


End file.
